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Pajarito Mountain will hold another of its ‘Beer & Bands’ promotion Saturday. Marble Brewing will serve at Pajarito starting at noon Saturday.

GOP meeting

The Republican Party of Los Alamos County will hold its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday at UNM-LA, room 610. The public is welcome to attend a presentation on “Global Warming Science: Where we are Now” by Chick Keller.

School Board

The Los Alamos School Board wil hold a work session Feb. 26 at Barranca Mesa Elementary School. An intial report on the 20-Year Facilities Plan will be discussed. Meeting time is 5:30 p.m.

There will be a breakfast fundraiser at Pajarito Lodge, 15th and Canyon Road, from 7:30-10 a.m. Saturday.

Warm Water

The Larry R. Walkup Aquatic Center will host a Warm Water Weekend Saturday and Sunday. Water temperature will be raised for the weekend. It will be Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m.-5 p.m.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Hoping to shed its reputation for offering little more than dead-end jobs, Wal-Mart, the nation’s biggest private employer, is giving raises to nearly a half-million workers and offering what it says are more opportunities for advancement.
Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that as part of $1 billion its spending to change the way it trains and pays workers, the company will give raises to nearly 40 percent of its 1.3 million U.S. employees in the next six months.
In addition to raises, Wal-Mart said it plans to make changes to how workers are scheduled and add training programs.
The company said the changes, which were announced Thursday as Wal-Mart reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, will hurt profits this year.
“We are trying to create a meritocracy where you can start somewhere and end up just as high as your hard work and your capacity will enable you to go,” CEO Doug McMillon told the AP during an interview this week at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.
The changes come at a time when there’s growing concern for the plight of the nation’s hourly workers.

SANTA FE (AP) — New Mexico lawmakers say they want to establish a statewide 500-mile recreation trail from Colorado to Texas weaving through many of the Land of Enchantment’s iconic vistas, monuments and cultural areas.
A bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill Thursday to create a commission to define the best routes and reach necessary agreements to designate a path through the many jurisdictions along the river. The body will make recommendations for the Appalachian Trail-style multi-use pathway.
The trail would only cross land with the agreement of owners and will link pathways that already exist along the Rio Grande, including the Bosque in Albuquerque, Taos, Elephant Butte and Las Cruces.
The idea is not new but the magnitude of the project has previously deterred construction.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese were seeing in the Year of the Sheep on Thursday, but with fortune-tellers predicting accidents and an unstable economy and some parents-to-be fretting over the year’s reputation for docile kids, it wasn’t exactly warming everyone’s heart.
This animal sign, which comes once every dozen years, can be said to have an identity crisis. Known variably as the Year of the Goat, Sheep or Ram, the sign’s confusion stems from its Chinese character, “yang,” which broadly describes any of the ruminating mammals, with or without horns.
Many Chinese prefer to translate it as the “Year of the Sheep” because sheep are more cute and cuddly, and large sheep figures have appeared around the capital’s shopping areas in recent weeks.
The goat, however, is more likely to be the original meaning because it was a popular farm animal among Han Chinese who started the zodiac tradition, Huang Yang, a researcher on the roles of sheep and goats in Chinese culture, was quoted by the official Xinhua News agency as saying.
Still, Xinhua is going with “Year of the Sheep” in its English-language reports rather than “Year of the Goat.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the fight against violent extremism, President Barack Obama argues the U.S. has one thing going for it that Europe doesn’t: a long tradition of warmly embracing its immigrants, including Muslims.
With the Islamic State group spreading and terrorists gaining strength in the Mideast and Africa, Obama has sought to use this week’s White House summit on violent extremism to urge the world to broaden its response far beyond military interventions. U.S. airstrikes have managed to blunt some of the militants’ gains in Iraq and Syria, but they don’t address the extreme ideologies that underpin deadly groups such as IS, al-Shabab and Boko Haram.
During the summit’s closing session Thursday at the State Department, Obama urged delegates from 65 countries to “confront the warped ideology” espoused by terror groups, particularly efforts to use Islam to justify violence.
“These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy and all us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent Islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative,” Obama said, using an acronym to refer to the Islamic State.

Bandelier National Monument has extended its time for the public review period for the Tsankawi Unit Management Plan and Environmental Assessment.
The extension will be through March 16.
According to Bandelier, the plan and environmental assessment evaluate a range of alternatives to improve resource protection, address safety concerns and enhance visitor opportunities at Tsankawi.
There were three alternatives developed based on the results of internal and public scoping, agency and pueblo consultation and prior planning studies.
Proposed actions in the plan include changes to the trail system, interpretive program and parking. Realignment of existing trails, according to Bandelier, would help protect resources from visitor impacts and natural erosion, while new trails would “enhance visitor opportunities to experience the area’s rich history of human occupation,” according to a press release issued by Bandelier officials.
Proposed interpretative messaging would have the goal of helping visitors understand the significance of the area’s culture and natural resources and trailhead parking would be relocated onto National Park Service land.
Currently, those with cars park on the shoulder of N.M. 4 near the intersection with N.M. 502.

Los Alamos County Council Chair Kristin Henderson presented Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) representatives with a proclamation of appreciation for their participation in the U.S.-Japan Demonstration Smart Grid Project Tuesday night.
NEDO General Director Masaaki Yamamoto accepted the proclamation and spoke about the impact of the project, NEDO’s first outside of Japan.
“The Los Alamos Smart Grid project was launched before the great Eastern earthquake in 2011. At that time, there was little discussion in Japan regarding the necessity of a Smart Grid, because there was sufficient supply of high quality energy in Japan,” Yamamoto said. “However, since the disaster, Japan has experienced power shortages every year. The country soon recognized the necessity of Smart Grids, and I would like to emphasize that the New Mexico demonstration project has been one of the major driving forces for the Smart Grid movement in Japan.”
Yamamoto called the demonstration one of NEDO’s “leading cutting-edge projects”

A Toyota sedan and a tanker truck collided at the intersection of Trinity and East Road. Minor injuries reported, police should have it resolved in an hour. In the meantime, traffic is being diverted via 4th Street. Injuries are said to be minor. Both the driver and the passenger of the sedan have been taken to the Los Alamos Medical Center for evaluation and treatment.